Contrastive Study of Lexical Features in Chinese Novels

Abstract

Abstract: The lexical differences caused by the gender factor are described through empirical studies based on comparing the selfbuilt corpus of Chinese novels of female writers with that of Chinese novels of male writers, with the purpose to discover the unique lexical features of female writers. The results show that the lexical richness and lexical density in female novels are lower than those in male novels. Thus, female novels are less informational and difficult than male novels. The result of keyword analyses shows that: nouns pertaining to entertainment and study, personal pronouns and auxiliary words of tone are more frequently used in female novels; nouns indicating interpersonal relations, business and profanity, deictic pronouns and adjectives are less frequently used by female.

Key words: Chinese novels of female writers, corpus, lexical richness, lexical density, keyword analysis

摘要： 语言的性别差异是社会语言学研究的热点。通过自建的女性与男性小说家作品语料库间的对比，可以揭示女性小说家词汇的使用特点。研究发现：在词汇丰富度和词汇密度方面，女性小说家均低于男性小说家，说明女性作品中传递的文本信息量少，阅读难度相应较低。通过主题词分析发现，在名词使用方面，女性小说家与男性小说家存在显著差异，女性偏爱使用与娱乐、学习等相关的名词，少用表人际关系及事业的名词和粗俗语；在人称代词和语气词使用方面，女性小说中的频数显著高于男性小说；在指示代词和形容词使用方面，女性小说中的频数显著低于男性小说。

关键词: 汉语女性小说, 语料库, 词汇丰富度, 词汇密度, 主题词分析

YU Tao1, TANG Meihua1,2. Contrastive Study of Lexical Features in Chinese Novels[J]. , 2017, 17(4): 117-122.

于涛1，唐美华1，2. 汉语小说中的词汇特征对比研究[J]. 重庆交通大学学报（社会科学版）, 2017, 17(4): 117-122.

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